This episode, Ketan Joshi from our Data61 team joins Interronauts to talk about the future, specifically, the future of AI and autonomous cars, and all things robo-librarians, not to mention a recent study on Antarctica set 50 years in the future, which takes a retrospective at two courses of action we humans might take to slow the gradual degradation of that lovely white continent, and, following that, a chat about the >200 new species we’ve discovered and named in the last year—more than one species every second day, sheesh. And, this episode, we have an interview with our Dr Ben Muir, manager of the Rapid Automated Materials & Processing centre, who’s been working with pet pharmaceutical group CannPal on developing a microencapsulation technology for precis medical marijuana delivery.

CSIRO news

Megatrends report

With an emphasis on the day-to-day struggles of sharing the road with bots, what with their inability to reciprocate ‘thank you waves’ “we explore the coming decade of digital disruption, exploring: 1) Intelligent machines, 2) Digital dividends, 3) Data driven trends, 4) Burning platforms, 5) Online burnout, 6) Reality bites.” Check out the full report.

Antarctica in 2070: what future will we choose?

“Choices made in the next decade will have long-term consequences for Antarctica and the globe, according to research published today in Nature.

“Two scenarios are considered: one in which greenhouse gas emissions remain unchecked, and one in which strong action is taken to limit emissions and to manage increased human use of Antarctica. In the high emissions narrative, by 2070 major ice shelves have collapsed, sea level rise has accelerated to rates not seen in 20,000 years, ocean acidification and over-fishing have altered Southern Ocean ecosystems, and failure to manage increased human pressures has degraded the Antarctic environment. In the low emissions narrative, Antarctica in 2070 looks much like it does today.” From our release.

Species richness: in 2018 we discovered over 200 new species

“Fossil insects in Burmese amber, a deepwater catshark from Papua New Guinea, a daisy known from only 20 individual plants in Western Australia, an Australian native weevil that has become a pest of macadamias and more than 200 other new species have been named in the past year by taxonomists at our National Research Collections Australia.” From our blog.

Interview: Dr Ben Muir on CannPal and medical cannabis for pets

“Dr Ben Muir is manager of the Rapid Automated Materials & Processing centre and leads a number of research projects. In this role he utilizes robotic synthesis and characterization equipment to rapidly speed up R&D outcomes in materials research used by CSIRO’s industry partners.” This episode he joins Interronauts to discuss our research and partnership with pet pharmaceutical group CannPal. (Read the blog.)

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